Legislators must act on right-to-die law

FILE - In this March 25, 2015 file photo, Dan Diaz, the husband of Brittany Maynard, watches a video of his wife, recorded 19 days before her assisted suicide death, where she says that no one should have to leave their home to legally end her life, during a news conference at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. The authors of a bill that would allow California physicians to help terminally ill patents end their lives, Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis and Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel, did not present the measure to the Assembly Health Committee as scheduled because it did not have enough votes to advance, Tuesday, July 7, 2015. Maynard, a 29-year-old San Francisco woman who had terminal brain cancer, moved to Oregon where she could legally end her life. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)

Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press

The plight of three terminally ill Californians who tried, and failed, to persuade a court to give them control over the end of their lives underscores the human toll of the Legislature’s inaction.

A measure that would have given physicians the authority to issue life-ending drugs — within a set of rigorous guidelines — cleared the state Senate earlier this year, then stalled in the Assembly Health Committee. The authors of SB128 are likely to renew their push next year, but by then it will be too late for the three plaintiffs who sued the state for the right to avoid prolonged suffering.

“For any judge, or anyone, or any law or legislator to tell me that my daughter has to watch me die painfully, that’s wrong,” plaintiff Christy O’Donnell said outside court last week. O’Donnell, 47, has lung cancer that has spread to her brain, liver, spine and ribs.

But after hearing the arguments, Superior Court Judge Gregory Pollack of San Diego said the state law on suicide was clear: It is a felony to deliberately aid or even advise a person to take his or her own life — and physicians are not exempt.

“You’re asking this court to make new law,” the judge said. “If a new law is made, it should be by the Legislature or a ballot measure.”

For a while, it looked as if this might be the year for action on this sensitive issue. The California Medical Association dropped its three decades of opposition to right-to-die legislation and went neutral on SB128. The issue also gained prominence with the case of Brittany Maynard, a terminally ill 29-year-old who had to move from the East Bay to Oregon last year to end her life on her own terms.

Still, the opposition was formidable, especially from the Catholic Church, and motivated by honorable intentions. Foes raised concerns about the effect on the poor and people with disabilities, or more generally about how a right-to-die law might influence views about suicide.

SB128 was modeled after laws in Oregon and other states in including safeguards against coercion. A physician would need to determine that a patient was mentally competent and had fewer than six months to live before prescribing a lethal drug.

The advantage of changing the law through the Legislature, as opposed to an initiative, is that it can be more readily tweaked or even repealed if unintended consequences arise.

It’s not an easy issue, but state lawmakers need to address it. Californians with terminal illnesses should not be forced to go through lengthy and uncertain legal process to control their destiny.